Ceylon Smilax is a large climbing shrub with stems
smooth, more or less 4-angled; armed with a few small distant prickles
to almost unarmed. Leaves are spirally arranged, hairless, broadly
ovate or almost round, 7-20 x 4-12 cm, tapering or cuspidate, base
rounded, narrowly sheathing, 3-5 costate; leaf-stalk 1.2-2.5 cm;
tendrils long and slender. Flowers are borne in solitary umbels in leaf
axils. Flowers are stalked, umbles many-flowered; flower-cluster-stalks
1.3-2 cm; bracteate below the flower-cluster-stalks, flower-stalks of
both male and female flowers arising from an aggregation of bracts.
Male flower flower-stalks 3 mm; flowers 5-6 mm; stamens 6 mm. Female
flower shorter than the male, tepals reflexed; flower-stalks 6-7 mm;
stigma 3, recurved. Berries are red when ripe. Ceylon Smilax is found
in deciduous forests in Western and Eastern Ghats, NE India, Myanmar.
Flowering: April-September.
Identification credit: Prashant Awale, Tabish
Photographed in Maharashtra.
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The flower labeled Ceylon Smilax is ...